


Poppy Flowers

by Ouranos



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Death, Dreams, Foreshadowing, Limbo, M/M, Magic, Magical Realism, Sad, You been warned buddy, but also some light-hearted fun, life - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-23 15:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3773377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ouranos/pseuds/Ouranos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But back to the August evening. He would like to declare that it is <em> not </em> his fault he fell asleep.</p><p>It was as if all the stars had aligned and had created the perfect opening to close his eyes and not pay attention to anything coming out of Derek’s mouth. One, it was warm, really warm. Two, for once, no one was raising their voice. Three, he had been up since six in the morning, okay? On a friggin’ holiday. And four –this was the final and very effective push–, Derek’s speech was ridiculously boring –something about some sort of fae species Stiles is willing to bet he knows more of. <em> Dear god, I hope he never becomes a teacher. Poor children. </em></p><p>So, there he is, sprawled on the couch with limbs akimbo next to a sticky body that is essentially a furnace, eyes painfully heavy, and then heavenly shut.<br/> </p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

It starts on a stormy evening in August after a few months of blissful silence. Stiles is sure a rulebook exists declaring there is no such thing as Continuous Peace in Beacon Hills, though he won’t realize something is wrong for some time. 

The so called “pack meetings”, or as Stiles calls them “Useless Chunks of Lost Time”, that are supposed to enforce morale, strengthen their ties _or something_ , to him seem more an excuse for them to leech off of Derek’s money and be treated to free pizza.

However, tonight no dice, and the frequent argument returns, “You’re the adult here, you’ve got the goods!”, and then, “I’m not you wallet, get your own food,” and on and on. From where Erica’s sitting, she keeps shooting dirty looks at Derek, who suffers from a dual personality disorder: oscillating between complaisance to his pack, and passive-aggressive disinterest.

The only reason Stiles agrees to these Lost Time gatherings –apart from the pizza, of course– is Scott, who unlike him, _is_ in need of fellow werewolves to hold on to his sanity. For Stiles’ taste, they’re a little too hot-headed and dramatic at times, except for Lydia and Allison, one of them extremely cool, the other warm, but both calm.

But back to the August evening. He would like to declare that it is _not_ his fault he fell asleep.

It was as if all the stars had aligned and had created the perfect opening to close his eyes and not pay attention to anything coming out of Derek’s mouth. One, it was warm, really warm. Two, for once, no one was raising their voice. Three, he had been up since six in the morning, okay? On a friggin’ holiday. And four –this was the final and very effective push–, Derek’s speech was ridiculously boring –something about some sort of fae species Stiles is willing to bet he knows more of. _Dear god_ , _I hope he never becomes a teacher. Poor children._

So, there he is, sprawled on the couch with limbs akimbo next to a sticky body that is essentially a furnace, eyes painfully heavy, and then heavenly shut.

_When he awakes, the room is bathed in cobalt blue. Initial reaction: “What the hell? How did I miss you painted this dump?” But upon closer inspection, the walls of Derek’s loft aren’t blue, the room itself is, the people are. Less Smurf, and more faint glow, like the reflection of a pool._

_But that isn’t strange in comparison to what is actually going on. Erica and Boyd are actually sparring in slow motion, though it looks more like chopped up sequences of a film than anything remotely graceful. Before he can contemplate any action or speech, Erica turns to him, leaps over a ragged couch, draws out her claws and advances in his direction with a predatory grin in her eyes._

When he truly regains consciousness –a short, painful kick to his left shin from Isaac accompanied with a judgemental once-over from Derek– the sudden terror he felt evaporats, and the dream is gone.

Two weeks later, during a backbreaking training session in the woods, Stiles loses his balance and stumbles into a fighting Erica. She turns around a slashes a deep, red cut into his upper arm, a nasty wound that will take weeks to heal.

Everyone writes off his trembling breath and his angry mumbling as shock, but he can’t shake the feeling that he recognized her movement.

 

 

+

 

 

Fall knocks summer out of the way, but the dreams –nonsensical and fantastical– keep coming. Each morning, Stiles wakes up with an empty mind, and while he stuffs his mouth eating all the unhealthy shit only a teenager’s metabolism could survive, he remains unaware.

In winter, as the earth grows hard from the cold, and the days turn shorter, his nights finally leave a print on his days: he doesn’t remember, but to anyone who is willing to listen, he blabbers on about a feeling he assumes come from nightly escapades, “These really freaky dreams, I swear man, they’re … something. Like, I kinda feel like I’m floating, like I’m dreaming, you know?”

“Yes, Stiles, that’s what generally happens in dreams.” Let’s just say, Derek’s disinterest is winning right now.

“Dick.”

Even Scott, his _best_ friend, can’t seem to give him the time of day, “Sorry, dude, but I gotta do this chemistry crap. Harris is gonna flunk me so bad if I fail one more. Why’s it so damn hard? Who needs titration anyways? It’s all just a bunch of —” Stiles zones out.

In his bedroom, before he gets up to shower, he lies motionless on his bed, staring up at the constellations an eight-year-old version of himself stuck on the ceiling. The dreams remind him of when he was a child, actually. Back then, he used to be a vivid dreamer, too. Unlike then, he isn’t able to recall what happened in them.

 

 

+

 

 

February changes everything, while life continues normally –school, lacrosse, pack meeting, school, lacrosse, pack meeting, bore, bore, snore. But now, as he dreams, he is cognizant of the fact he is dreaming.

 _In the dead of night on February 19 th, triumphantly, he points at a Greek girl who’s been leading him around the boisterous city of Athens, and she nods and tells him, “_ _Nαί_ _, you’re dreaming!”_

It doesn’t worry him, because it can’t. How can you be anxious over something you don’t remember? The only thing he can say, is that he dreams, and even that he usually forgets by the time the spray of the shower treat his nerve endings to heaven.

 

 

+

 

 

“Why are you here?”

“Hello to you too, asshole.”

Derek grumbles as Stiles slips past him, carefully avoiding the guy’s shoulder.

“I repeat, why are you here? What’s wrong?”

Stiles walks further into the loft, head moving to and fro, and barely pays him any attention when he says, “Hello to you too, again, asshole. Nothing’s wrong.”

When there’s no reply –no, there’s one, it’s the trademark _sigh_ , the _oh, what have I done to deserve this idiocy?_ – Stiles turns around with a frown on his face and says, “Whatever, is your creeptastic uncle around?”

Though he is not a fan of said Hale, he could use him.

“Why?”

“I need to talk to him.” Stiles makes a _duh_ face.

“Okay, why?”

Derek is –next to monosyllabic answers he considers to be entire sentences– also proficient in staring. It’s on the tip of Stiles’ tongue to say, _kill me, or kiss me?_ but that wouldn’t work out, so he drops it, and instead snaps, “Books. For reading Because that’s what you do with books. You read them …”

At that, Peter appears out of nowhere, and smirks as he says, “Follow me.”

With a last peek at Derek, he follows.

It takes about ten minutes to find what he came for –a small chapter on dreaming in a book that feels and looks old enough to fall apart at the mere touch– , but the entire time, he feels eyes on the back of his neck: Derek watching him.

Stiles all but flees out of the loft.

(The book offers nothing, in the end. All the symptoms that go together with a creature or curse doing this to him don’t add up: no headaches, no nosebleeds, no disorientation, no missed gaps of time. He doesn’t recognize anything as useful, and the tome lies on his desk, abandoned.)

 

 

+

 

 

In March, amidst the hectic hassle of planning for college, Stiles attempts to keep a dream journal. _Attempt_ , being key word, here. It does not work out –literal, blank pages, except for _woke up and 9:36, … nothing_ –, and he scowls at Lydia who laughs at him during a lunch break. “Jesus, Scotty, you can’t keep a secret if your life depended on it!” Scott has the audacity to look innocent as he pokes at the godawful fish sticks.

In April, he meets his mother. Had he been of the opinion before that the dreams would have been harmful, from then on, he couldn’t care less. He is insanely happy whenever he sees her, and, wonderfully, not even that sad.

_His mother, young and naïve, whispers at music, declaring she wishes to trap the melodies. Stiles gives her a small music box that appears in his pocket and she embraces him. She shows up in many, many dreams, and he relives details hidden deep in his memories: the scar running down the back of her left arm, the way she rubs her nose excessively, the loud laugh that is too shrill, how she enjoys cursing like a sailor._

_Next to them, sand falls from the sky, piles up, and the formed hourglass creature tells him, “Time is a precious thing, you know.” Instead of listening, they build a sandcastle, like a pair of five year olds, and they enjoy a sun that won’t burn their pale skin._

 

And that, that is the first warning.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

It’s been three hundred and five days since that stormy night, three hundred and five dreams. Still, however, the mechanics escape him. They are simply dreams to him, nothing more, so, he does not suspect them of malice, and rightfully so. His life goes on at a boring pace in a calm Beacon Hills that is surprisingly vacant of death threats.

 

 

+

 

 

 _How_ exactly it happens, he doesn’t know, but he keeps ending up at the loft. Who is he kidding? He knows exactly why.

Most often, he does homework. Derek stops complaining after a few weeks. Peter is suspiciously absent. Scott gives him odd looks, Lydia gives him knowing looks, and Isaac and Erica smirk – _that_ he hates.

He doesn’t want it, he doesn’t, but it happens anyways: he’s stuck on Derek, of all people. “Do you know how uncool that is? Like so uncool, it’s hot —no, not, not like _hot_ … I mean, it’s just not cool, not cool.” Scott has this apologetic look on his face Stiles would like to smack right off.

_The dreams turn heavy and wild, and heavier and wilder still as the months wear on. On a mountain slope in the middle of Tibet, he thumb-wrestles with a woman called Love, but she wins without exception. Stiles objects, “Hey, that’s not fair, of course I can’t win! Your fingers … keep disappearing and appearing, like some Houdini trick.”_

_She answers, “Crybaby.”_

_The Mountain shakes with laughter, and small charcoal-coloured rocks dance around them, pricking at his skin._

What he feels, he won’t call love, but _one night in September, a hand on his shoulder informs his that it is, “It is, son” Stiles turns around and the image of a woman resembling his mother vanishes into thin air, blinding Stiles as the sea’s shimmering surface, previously blocked, engulfs his view._ _A man floating in boat rows from one island to the next._

The next morning he is faced with the truth that what he had refused to label anything other than “lust” for Derek is something else, and he subsequently reverts to his old M.O., which is avoiding him for weeks on end. He feigns his way through stilted conversations with wilful ignorance. Derek finds it annoying, but, really, Derek has always found Stiles irritating.

_“Coward. Do not waste time thinking about it,” the Moon mocks._

_Stiles abandons the night, and finds Scott sitting in a field of willow trees. He sits down next to his friend, and his body makes a deep Stiles-shaped print on the ground._

_Scott tells him, “She’s right, you know.”_

_“Why is everyone always so damn cryptic here?” Stiles complains, throwing his hand in the air. “What do you_ mean _?”_

_“A coward. Derek.” Stiles sees Scott’s brows furrow, sees his mouth moving, but the sound is mostly drowned out by the cicadas hiding in the trees that are swiping the floor, cleaning the field in a slow stupor._

_“Great. Now you’re not even speaking in actual sentences anymore.” He sighs and they end up playing tic-tac-toe on the ground, using broken branches to mark their X and O._

_His mother shows up, and she judges their crooked lines drawn in the sand. She takes off her shoes and turns one over, but Stiles is focused on the raster, where he should put his next X._

 

 

+

 

 

The dreams that have been visiting him for months are eerie and fantastical. While in the dreams, he suspects them of containing a grain of truth, a flash of future, a reflection of the past, yet the images are fleeting and nonsensical, and in daylight words of explanation can’t be formed. Stiles is obsessed with feelings in the morning he can’t explain, and he grows restless.

_On a train to Kiev in the middle of winter, a Glimmer urges him, “You ought to remember by now.”_

_The large windows in the cramped but endless train carriages show him speeding landscapes, snow dancing in front of his face, and he presses his nose against the glass. “Remember what?” he asks distractedly._

_Somewhere, a piano is playing, and the steam engine follows the rhythm. On the opposite side of where they are sitting, his mother is quietly reading a book on zoology._

_“Your dreams, my friend.”_

_Irritated at his lack of acknowledgement –he continues staring at the crystals– the Glimmer shrieks, sixty seven window panes shatter and Stiles falls out of the one he’s been flattening his nose against, into the snow, melting the surface and then drops into an icy ocean of green, where the fish laugh at his gracelessness._

He wakes up with a bruise on his hip where he tumbled out of his bed.

 

 

+

 

 

Then the irritation starts to settle in: from that moment, after that train ride, no one will shut up about the need to remember. Usually it is an entity he cannot touch or see, like the Sun, Death, Spring, a Garden, a Giant. He starts yelling at them, losing his patience, but each time he wakes up … nothing. He goes to his classes, he goes out, … but nothing.

 _Derek looks at him sideways, poppies and thorns blooming in the background, and says, “Why can’t you realize?” “Realize_ what _?” Stiles wonders aloud, drumming his fingers against his chest._

_He hears footsteps, and Derek is walking away, gesturing left and right, “This. It’s not so hard.”_

Before entering the dining room where a mountain of food is supposed to surprise Isaac for his upcoming birthday, Stiles stops Derek in the hallway and blurts out, “I need to tell you something.”

Derek looks up, waiting, with an apprehensive look in his eye.

“Uhm… I, uh…”

What is it? It’s on the tip of his tongue, fighting to break free, but his mind is blank. “I don’t know.” He receives an exasperated sigh, and slumps his shoulders as Derek walks away.

 

 

+

 

 

In real life, time is linear but cyclical, it goes from morning to midday, to night and back to morning, it flows from season to season. It’s calculated, unchanged, and entirely dependable. In his dreams, time is meaningless as there is no hurry. Nothing needs to be done, everything simply needs to be. _“What a load of crap,” Stiles tells the Sage, “You keep telling me I need to remember! Doesn’t that count as something that needs to be_ done _?_

_The Sage, patient and young, tells him, “It is not here you must remember,” she unfolds her hands and motions at the sky, “but here,” and suddenly she’s besides him, touching his temple once. “You’ll be wanting to, soon.” Stiles wrenches himself free and mumbles, “I wish you could all speak like normal human beings for once.”_

_“Maybe,” she answers, “but we are not humans, and therein lies your misplaced request.”_

_He’s had about enough of this. “You should write a book”, Stiles suggests drily, and he gets up and leaves, wandering accompanied by his mother through mazes made of steel and gravel._

 

 

+

 

 

December, early evening, six weeks later.

The rest of the pack is in the living room, halfway through a movie. Stiles drops a coffee spoon on the floor, bends down, then back up and bangs his head against an open cupboard, which causes Derek to place a hand on the rapidly forming bump. Derek sighs at his aggravating clumsiness, but Stiles isn’t paying attention, because something tugs sharply at his mind. He remembers doing this before, he remembers an _angry Derek putting his hands on a cut near his elbow, mumbling, “Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid,” his voice swallowed in warm dust_.

“Thanks again,” Stiles mumbles.

“Again?”

“Yeah, two times in two days. Must be a record.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen this before. I mean, not exactly this, the first time was in the Philippines with an old lady yelling at me because I’d unknowingly insulted her. I mean, how was I supposed to know that that gesture meant– Whatever, it’s not important. Her son came after us and we ran, like, a millions miles an hour, friggin’ Speedy Gonzalez, but of course I fell down, and then …” And then that sliver of memory is gone again, and only a creepy feeling left in its place.

Derek is staring at him and then shakes his head, returning to where he’d been pouring a glass of water.

“So you’re talking about a dream, then?”

“Uh … I guess.”

Stiles is still holding the spoon, and flees the kitchen to go find the abandoned journal he keeps with him in vain.

The pen hovers above the grey, flimsy paper, but in the end, he writes, _Dec. 14 th. something’s up. no clue what._

Derek stares at him for a large portion of the evening, while Stiles, tapping his fingers loudly against his chest, is completely lost in thought, contemplating, thinking, wondering.

 

 

+

 

 

Over the next months he sees –but does not realize– glimpses of his dreams appear in real life: _a Flood of gargantuan proportions_ turn into the heaviest storm he’s ever seen in Beacon Hills, _a pale Guardian of golden gates_ turns into a deceased officer, a colleague of his father’s, _a Devil with a dead smile_ turns into killer caught, her face plastered on TV and in newspapers.

One day, he’s sitting on Derek’s bed –“Sitting? Invading.”– and he admits that he likes the dreams, even though they are disturbing at times.

Derek makes him talk to Deaton about it, who speaks to Marin, who comes over and performs some unpleasant tests on him —he is still no fan of needles. As he could have easily predicted himself, nothing happens.

He shouldn’t have said anything. Not only does it raise the metaphorical hackles of the pack members, but there is another change, too, wholly more worrisome: the dreams change. _He is haunted by a something dark that seems to stick to him, like a shadow._

Warning number two.

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

Dreams of archaic senses, modern guides and limitless landscapes morph and drag him into barren wasteland, where smoke and death reigns, and fire and fear.

_He stumbles across broken fields, his feet bruised and cut while glancing over his shoulder to make sure he isn’t being followed, footsteps lighter than those of the stealthy predators he knows back at home._

_He slows down eventually, catching his breath. Amongst the ruins, he meets a figure named Thanatos. “The wish is wasted on you.”_

_Stiles tears his gaze away from where he’d been gawking at what looked to be an infested fissure in the earth. “Wish? What wish?”_

_Thanatos points behind him and Stiles follows the finger and sees his mother standing alone, looking quite bored. “Ah, don’t worry, Stiles, I think he’s wrong. I had one wish left I didn’t use, but … somehow, it’ll work out all right.”_

_“Uhm…” Stiles prompts as he leaves Thanatos behind and walks towards his mother, “You had wishes? Like a genie or something?” The wind starts howling and weeping like a child. He yells as loud as he can, “SHUT UP!” and, miraculously, the sky clears up and listens to him._

_“No Aladdin, sorry. But I hade wishes, yes, two. I died before I could use the second. But I know it isn’t wasted, no matter what he says.”_

_He jerked his thumb backwards, “Right. And who’s he, again?”_

_She ignores him, and guides him to a memory he’d long forgotten: their old apartment, and how he’d thought it was perfectly acceptable to paint the walls of his bedroom all by himself._

_For a short time, the wasteland turns bright and colourful._

Purple shadows form under his eyes.

 

 

+

 

 

Derek keeps staring, but Stiles likes it. Stiles stares right back until Derek shifts his gaze. Sucker.

_He can’t find his mother. The stinking bog is festering, creating swamps where clear, wide rivers used to flow, and Peace whispers to him in a deserted corner, as Stiles touches the mud at his feet, playing with little beetles like he did in the woods as a kid, “You do not understand. We were never a remedy, or a solution.”_

_Stiles is not an aggressive person, but the anger is threatening to boil him alive. If he doesn’t watch out, he might start squishing the bugs by accident. “A solution to_ what? _What’s coming? I don’t_ understand _!” he bites out. “Nothing of this,” he flings his arms sideways, “makes sense. It’s just …”_

_The electric storm dancing around them shifts suddenly into soft rain, and he begs Peace_ , _“Please, why can’t it be like before? Why d’you have to take me here?” The barren land has been a permanent setting for the past two months. “Oh …” and Peace shakes its head, a little confused. “It was … hope for making you see.”_

_Stiles sighs with a quick breath of air escaping, and answers, “I’m tired and I don’t see shit.”_

_“Does that not give you a clue?”_

_Stiles stomps away, trying to find his mother once again, and misses it as Thanatos appears and is told by Peace, “It’s not working. Just let it be.” Peace wanders off, tracing the grey horizon with its fingertips, creating a single illuminated line that fades out abruptly as it disappears into thin air._

There are no more warnings.

 

+

 

 

After a particularly gruelling week of being locked up in his room, typing away deliriously to try and meet deadlines he’s ignored, he ropes Scott, Allison and Lydia into going out. Amidst a sea of people, he dances like a fool, and doesn’t give a single fuck about all the annoyed faces judging him.

He has never been this drunk, nor this hung-over in his life. The headache is beating against his skull, and he groans when he sees a beetle tattooed on his skin on the back of his left arm. He is going to murder Scott.

(“You were _very_ adamant, Stiles. Also, you wouldn’t shut up about it, so.”

“So?! So, what?!”)

 

 

+

 

 

_A waterfall drowns out his shouts, but still he manages to be heard by Thanatos, “I know who you are, now, I_ know _, and …” a scream of anger, “fuck you! Not yet! No way!”_

_Thanatos is neither cruel nor kind, and tells him, “Our words before held the same message always: your time is running out. You ought to have remembered.”_

He still doesn’t.

 

 

+

 

 

_He is blind, and Love tells him so. “Open your eyes.”_

_“Shut_ up _, I’m trying to sleep.”_

_“Fool. Do you understand nothing?”_

_Stiles knows the language they speak, and from time to time he spites them by adopting an insincere version of it. He opens one eye and mocks, “Oh Love, a broken record you provide!”_

_“Ingrate. And to me, you have the audacity to speak thus? I, whom you have wronged twice over?”_

_Stiles gets up from the abandoned bench he’s been lying on, dried mud caked on his cheeks falling off in chunks. “Twice?” he grunts. “Also, I thought Love was supposed to be … nice, or something.”_

_Love laughs and reprimands him, “Me, personally, only once. Us, you have wronged twice.” Her smile turns into a leer. “Love is not always nice, and for you, who does not even try, of course it would not be.”_

_It is clear whom she is referring to, and Stiles feels heat prick at his neck._

_“Oh, yes, I know.”_

_Scolded like a child who’s been caught stealing sweets, Stiles feels cornered. “He … It doesn’t… he doesn’t think of me like that.”_

_Love seems to thin out, hiding in the fumes of the marshes and says, for the first time with kindness, “How would you ever know that if not once have you given it a chance?”_

The next morning, not understanding where the determination comes from, he jumps into his car, violates speed limits, stops at Derek’s, races up the steps, bangs on the door, and smashes his lips against Derek’s. His heartbeat beats wildly, his breath breathes uncontrolledly, but it doesn’t matter.

In a matter of seconds, they are a blob of movement, in the hallway, on the stairs, lingering, and in a bedroom Stiles has only once set foot in. It’s the stuff made from dreams, and he pinches himself to the point of a bruise to make sure this isreal, because, after all, Derek is protesting a whole lot less than he’d have expected. In fact, there is not a word of disagreement.

_“Only once wronged,” Love assures him the next evening, and she grabs his face and kisses him deeply. She morphs into Derek and they repeat yesterday’s dance. Finally the sun bursts in a tiny faint ray through a black sky, and Stiles feels warmth on his freezing face._

_Out of his hearing range a Midget whispers to a Giant, “I think that this is about as far as we will get.”_

_The Giant grunts._

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

Erica moves to one of the kitchen cabinets, hunts down a bag of pretzels she can smell lying around, and says to Boyd, “What’s even going on with that spazzball? He’s acting …”

“Reckless?”

Erica nods, “Yeah. Impulsive. And I’ve never seen him laugh so much. It’s a little crazy.”

They return to the living room where the pack is playing Jungle Speed, a game Stiles loves but has sworn he’ll never play with any of them again –on account of the hoard of insanely competitive werewolves and the scratches on his hands. He’s red in the face, yelling and shouting at a volume the neighbours two houses down can hear, after having shoved aside his promise with a simple, “Who cares what I said! You only live once, let’s _go_!”

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

 _He plays a game of catch-me-if-you-can in the maze of the medina quarter in Tripoli,_ and he challenges Derek to a chase. He loses, but takes it very well. Derek loves it. 

 _On the clifsf of Dover, he flings himself forward and howls with excitement,_ and he jumps of the highest springboard in the Beacon Hills pool. Jackson loses the bet, and Stiles uses the money to go to the movies. The wide smile he’s sporting seems glued on.

 _A little girl cries in the middle of an empty road,_ and he wrenches on her arm as a car swerves out of the way in the nick of time. She cries all the same, once she sees him shaking with what she thinks is anger.

 _Stiles seduces Derek in a field of poppies, “I figured it out,”_ and they lock themselves up for an entire three days, fucking like mad. Derek buries his hands in Stiles’ hair, and rubs his head. (Isaac’s grin turns into a disturbed frown.)

 _Walking along the coast, his mother tells him she misses him terribly, and wishes she could see him again_ , and his father dives into a bottle of bourbon during the anniversary of her death, mumbling things Stiles doesn’t want to hear.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

“Last time I’ll ask you, Stiles,” his father warns.

And, okay, maybe that’s warranted. The request to clean up the attic _had_ been made about six times before, but Stiles had better things to do, okay? Wasting time cleaning up some dingy –and slightly creepy– old, musty, dusty, disgusting, cobweb-filled dump was not very high on his list.

That pathetic little explanation gets him an eye roll and a, “Last time I’ll ask you, Stiles.”

“ _Fine._ ” He’s being a brat, and he knows it.

So, there he is, sneezing like there’s no tomorrow, wiping at his tearing eyes while cleaning up an attic that’s mostly filled with everything he wouldn’t leave behind when they moved here ten years ago. He’s stuck up there while everyone is out enjoying the first warm day of spring. Swell. Neat. Awesome.

Amongst the junk, crap, garbage, and more junk, he finds something else: a book. Too bad he can’t read archaic Latin. He’ll take a look at it later.

 

_His mother ends up leading him to an underground maze where bits of sunlight filter through, teaching him how he can mould this world however he likes._

_She speaks loudly, her voice bouncing off the walls made of dirt._

_Stiles asks, “How come you’re here?”_

_“Everyone’s here,” she tells him, and she pushes against a narrow passage, forcing it to grow. He follows her example, and it feels amazing, like building your own world._

_“Yeah, I guess, but why am I? I’m not … yet…,”_

_“That …,” she starts, “that’s my fault. I opened pages I shouldn’t have.”_

_Stiles lets out a groan of frustration. He’s realized what she’s speaking of, but he knows he won’t be able to do anything about it. He never remembers. Stiles is already beyond the point of being angry, now. He just can’t get through to the version of himself that’s awake, and he’s tired of it._

_“Mom?”_

_“Yeah?” She turns around, her face too white in a ray that crept its way trough._

_Stiles hesitates. “I’m not done yet. I wasn’t before, and I’m not now, and oh, my_ god _, I’m starting to sound like all you nutters. Fuck.”_

_The rest of the journey she won’t look at him, and she whispers resolutely before climbing up to fresh air, “I know, and I am so truly sorry, but it’ll be okay.”_

 

+

 

 

 

 _The bog had dissolved and sunshine lasted for thirty-five days_ , and halfway through spring Thanatos enters the veil between life and death, coming to claim him. Stiles is hunched over, clasping his head where a excruciating, terrifying pain crushes him like a fucking freighter. 

He is not alone, and a terror-stricken Derek is touching him, shouting at him like the Wind sometimes did, gripping him like Thanatos sometimes would, but Stiles feels only the knives digging into his skull. He looks up to find a layer of moisture pooling in Derek’s eyes, and he thinks, _That’s not right,_ but it may just be his own blurring his vision.

He grows cold and feels himself dropping, and in the distance he hears someone stuttering, no, no, no, someone repeating his name. The kitchen light is harsh and unforgiving, until Derek blocks it, head hovering over Stiles’ body.

Somehow he manages to choke out, “Ow … it…,” and then an ugly sob breaks out. Without a warning, he flattens the hands previously clutched to his head on the floor and vomits a gallon of blood on a pattern of white hexagon tiles. “Oh my god,” he whispers, terrified, _that isn’t normal, oh, god, oh, what the_ , “What the fuck?”, staring at the spreading puddle, and two bloodied hands shake his face and pull it straight ahead, “Look at me. Look at me.”

Cold is seeping through his bones as blood trickles out of his mouth. He tries to speak, and coughs out thick splatters of blood that look monstrous against his white skin. 

In his lightheaded, agonizing state, a dim light switches on. “Oh,” he breathes, glancing back at the red pool, “the wish …,” he swallows, coughs, “… gave me time.” Now he remembers.

“I don’t understand!” Derek growls desperately, running fingers over icy skin, which is turning a colour he’s seen on too many bodies.

“I used … it was … a wish.” Then he realizes, “Fuck, I’m leaving … you, like, the others.” The words are spoken in harmony with his choked breathing.

Besides Derek yelling at him, the only other noise in the room is the refrigerator buzzing loudly, too loudly, and Stiles can’t help but think, _Damn it, I forgot to buy that cucumber Dad asked for_.  _Dad. Dad. Dad._

Derek shakes his head, then lets out a curse and grabs blindly for his phone, calling the paramedics. “It doesn’t … don’t... Stop, just, stop…”

Derek tells him to shut the hell up, just look at me, don’t close your eyes.

By the time two strangers armed with medical supplies are let into the house, Derek, looking lost, is slumped against the wall with his face buried in his hands. Stiles’ shaking body has stopped convulsing, and his vibrant eyes are glassy, vacant, his skin translucent.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

_“I am sorry, kochanie,” his mother whispers again._

_Stiles has been sitting in the desert for hours now, refusing to change the landscape. He’s tracing shapes into the sands and listening to birds overhead, but can think of no reply. It wasn’t her fault._

_In the end he says, “Thanks. For the wish. I …” he can’t stop thinking of those he left behind._

_“I’m sorry.”_

_“Yeah.”_

 

 

 

+

 

 

Death waits patiently, but never for long.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Game time! 
> 
> How many hints at death have you spotted? There are _loads_.

**Author's Note:**

> You're welcome to leave comments and thoughts!


End file.
